Better English term for Sidebar "decks"

l10n
#1

The word "deck" in "Sidebar deck" seems like a rather unintuitive term for translators. It mainly brings to mind the Star Trek Holodeck. Are we running an office suite or a (space)ship? This topic is being discussed here: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131078

Our documentation has not even caught up with the transition from "window" (as in "Styles window") to "deck", so the terminology and thus translations are all over the place. "Window" is misleading as we are essentially talking about different states in a panel.

I see in the Finnish translation we currently use a term analogous to "deck of cards", "pile" or "bow of a ship".

What came to my mind as a more translator-friendly term is "view".

Thoughts from localisers?

Ilmari

#2

Þann 10.3.2020 07:01, skrifaði Ilmari Lauhakangas:

The word "deck" in "Sidebar deck" seems like a rather unintuitive term for translators. It mainly brings to mind the Star Trek Holodeck. Are we running an office suite or a (space)ship? This topic is being discussed here: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131078

Our documentation has not even caught up with the transition from "window" (as in "Styles window") to "deck", so the terminology and thus translations are all over the place. "Window" is misleading as we are essentially talking about different states in a panel.

I see in the Finnish translation we currently use a term analogous to "deck of cards", "pile" or "bow of a ship".

What came to my mind as a more translator-friendly term is "view".

Thoughts from localisers?

Hi Ilmari;

I prefer talking about a "Sidepanel" ("Hliðarspjald" in Icelandic) and if a "deck" is a part of such a "Sidebar", then I'd say a "Sidepanel section" or a "Sidepanel tab".
I guess the nomenclature bringing "decks" into LO stems from Nextcloud or similar webified environments (deck/board/stack/card) and must be related to cardgames, but I may easily be wrong.

Best regards,
Sveinn í Felli

#3

Nope, the term comes from AOO. See https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Sidebar#Decks (and the glossary below).

#4

Hi Ilmari, *,

T, 10. märts 2020 08:02 Ilmari Lauhakangas <
ilmari.lauhakangas@libreoffice.org> kirjutas:

The word "deck" in "Sidebar deck" seems like a rather unintuitive term
for translators. It mainly brings to mind the Star Trek Holodeck. Are we
running an office suite or a (space)ship? This topic is being discussed
here: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131078

Our documentation has not even caught up with the transition from
"window" (as in "Styles window") to "deck", so the terminology and thus
translations are all over the place. "Window" is misleading as we are
essentially talking about different states in a panel.

I see in the Finnish translation we currently use a term analogous to
"deck of cards", "pile" or "bow of a ship".

There is definitely some confusion about the terms, however I'm not sure
the word "deck" is to blame - rather the mix-n-match of
panel/pane/deck/window (and possibly something else I forgot), which makes
one stop and hesitate, "what is this thing now exactly, didn't it have a
different name 20 sentences ago?"

What came to my mind as a more translator-friendly term is "view".

Thoughts from localisers?

I think "view" would create more problems than it solves, as it is way more
abstract word than "deck" and besides that, already used in several other
places, esp. in Impress.

Best regards,
Mihkel
Estonian team

#5

Þann 10.3.2020 08:30, skrifaði Mihkel Tõnnov:

What came to my mind as a more translator-friendly term is "view".

Thoughts from localisers?

I think "view" would create more problems than it solves, as it is way more
abstract word than "deck" and besides that, already used in several other
places, esp. in Impress.

Agree, "view" is too generic and perhaps applies more to the content, not the application.

Another problem with "deck"; in many languages it originally has origins in boats/ships/sailing (close to "cover" and "flooring"), and has *horizontal* properties - usually not upright.
But that is of course question for each translator to evaluate, English may have other finesses...

Best,
Sveinn í Felli

#6

Þann 10.3.2020 08:08, skrifaði Heiko Tietze:

I guess the nomenclature bringing "decks" into LO stems from Nextcloud or similar webified environments...

Nope, the term comes from AOO. See https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Sidebar#Decks (and the glossary below).

Actually there's a very good illustation on that page: <https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/File:SidebarNames.png>

So the "deck" is a subsection of the Tab-bar, usually not often exposed to the users, right?

Best,
Sveinn í Felli

#7

FYI,
in Slovenian we use the term that would be literally translated in English
as "stacked tabs".

Lp,

V V tor., 10. mar. 2020 ob 08:02 je oseba Ilmari Lauhakangas <
ilmari.lauhakangas@libreoffice.org> napisala:

#8

Our HIG is here https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Guidelines/SideBar

The deck is what in other dialogs is meant by tab. Or is it the tab view/content/panel and the tab is only this UI element to switch between Font, Font Effects, Position etc.? Anyway, you should consider ordinary tab views as the prototype for the sidebar.

We could also drop the term and just talk about Content Panel(s).

#9

Hi

+1 for "Panel" (Vertical panel, Horizontal panel, Side panel, Floating panel, etc.).

Ciao

#10

+1 for "Panel" (Vertical panel, Horizontal panel, Side panel, Floating panel, etc.).

Isn't a panel the full sidebar including all tabs with decks / views / ...?

#11

Þann 10.3.2020 09:19, skrifaði Heiko Tietze:

So the "deck" is a subsection of the Tab-bar, usually not often exposed to the users, right?

Our HIG is here https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Guidelines/SideBar

The deck is what in other dialogs is meant by tab. Or is it the tab view/content/panel and the tab is only this UI element to switch between Font, Font Effects, Position etc.? Anyway, you should consider ordinary tab views as the prototype for the sidebar.

Well, it's just interesting to see from where the vocabulary takes its mental images. In this case much of the words stem from early-mid 20th-century bureautics and stationary, culminating by the Rolodex <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolodex>. Before that, people attached separate tabs onto specific pages in f.x. ledgers for indexing purposes.

So the tab (the protruding thing) was originally meant to be able to find a specific page or card (or groups of these). Later there came pages/cards with prepared tabs, but I think that the word tab only applied to the protruding part, not the content itself.

> We could also drop the term and just talk about Content Panel(s).

Content frame, content section or content panel in a tabbed sidepanel/sidebar - does not really matter for me as a translator, as long as I have this illustration before my eyes: <https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LO-HIG_SideeBar-Terminology.png> (you notice the extra "e" in "LO-HIG_SideeBar" ?.

Would be great to link to it in Weblate for strings referencing those definitions, screenshots are supported in Weblate <https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/translating.html#screenshots>.

Best,
Sveinn í Felli

#12

Heiko Tietze (<heiko.tietze@documentfoundation.org>) kirjutas 10.3.2020
kell 11:25:

> +1 for "Panel" (Vertical panel, Horizontal panel, Side panel, Floating
panel, etc.).

Isn't a panel the full sidebar including all tabs with decks / views / ...?

Technically yes (I think) - but I wonder if such a distinction is
meaningful for a wider (read: non-technical) userbase.
In addition, some languages (such as my own) do not necessarily have
established distinct terms for panel vs. deck vs. pane.

Best regards,
Mihkel
Estonian team

#13

I mean Panel as a "part of a Window". The word Deck is correct, but, in Italian, we cannot use Deck with the same meaning we generally use (nautical/aerial filed). The correct translation is "plancia" / "console", but inside the program the translation sounds no good.

Of course, the intention is correct, because we have a "Deck with commands", it's not a simple panel (text area, list, etc).

That's whay in Italian we translated "Sidebar Deck" > "Barra laterale", which we know it is not the exact meaning but it is clear to understand to *all* users.

Ciao

#14

Currently there is massive work going on on the user guides (there are a
few user guides in the process of update to 6.4) that use this word
extensively.

So, please consult also the documentation team (and of course this means a
lot of translators re-translating/confirming their previous translations).

Lp, m.

V V tor., 10. mar. 2020 ob 12:21 je oseba Valter Mura <
valtermura@libreoffice.org> napisala:

#15

The AOO wiki link (from where the term
supposedly came):

https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Sidebar#Decks

clearly shows that that 'deck' has the meaning
as in the 'deck of cards' (well, 'of panels').

So you might translate it as if it was a 'set
(of panels)' or a 'spread (of panels)' or